ALL WEEK I waited for it to hit the fan. Todd Buckley gets dumped. That was the equivalent of a coup d’état at F. Scott Fitzgerald High. I couldn’t imagine a hotter story.
Every day I walked through the double doors expecting to hear an excited buzz, like the time Phil Braggett cracked up his old man’s Alfa Romeo and put himself in intensive care. Or the fake-sympathetic delighted whispering when everybody found out that Jerrie Javitz was pregnant—and the even juicier reprise a few weeks later, when they realized that she wasn’t anymore.
There was nothing. Just the delivery guy from 1-800-4BAGELS, camped out in front of my locker, bearing a Deluxe Breakfast on the Fly. A peace offering from Jake, I think.
I recognized the kid as he poured my O.J. “Throckmorton Hall, right?”
He seemed surprised. “How did you know?”
“How happening is that guy?” the A.U. student marveled. “You should have seen the smoking chick at his other drop-off. Girlfriend or something.”
Somebody’s girlfriend.
Speaking of Todd, he continued to be his usual arrogant self. He had taken to identifying every single adult male visitor to the school as a college scout here to observe the Broncos practice. That included the bagel guy, the superintendent of schools, and the coveralled plumber who came to Roto-Rooter Fitz’s main sewer connection.
“Don’t take it so hard,” I advised when the man departed, leaving Todd’s free-agent status intact. “You don’t want to play for a team that’s already in the toilet.”
Todd just smiled serenely. “So he’s not the guy. But he’ll be here—right in the front row.”
If this was someone who had just been kissed off by Didi Ray, then he had to be the greatest actor in the history of high school. And Todd despised the drama club, because he was convinced all the guys in it were gay.
I was dying to talk to Jake, but he was difficult to nail down. At practice, Coach Hammer had us working on field-goal kicking, and the holder was Todd, so that was out. And as soon as I got home from school, there was Didi’s Volkswagen, parked alongside the Beamer in the Garrett driveway. Well, I sure wasn’t going to walk in on that love nest.
I needed to run into the guy at school, but that was easier said than done. Jake wasn’t in any of my classes. And when I started asking around, not a single person I knew had a course with him. So on Thursday I went to see Danny Nash, who worked in the guidance office. Danny did favors for a lot of athletes in return for varsity hats and shirts he could use to impress girls from other schools. Today, however, it wasn’t any Fitzgerald souvenir that Danny had his eye on. He wanted what everybody wanted—an invitation to Jake’s party the next night. I couldn’t guarantee that, of course, but Danny saw the logic. How could I ask Jake if I couldn’t even find him?
Danny pulled Jake’s schedule, and I realized why nobody was in any of his classes. Jake Garrett was enrolled in honors everything! If there was such a thing as enriched lunch, he would have been in it.
At three o’clock, I waited for him outside advanced-placement computer programming.
Jake looked a little sheepish when he saw me. “Hey, baby. I figured I’d catch you at the field.”
The Broncos’ first game was on Saturday, so Coach Hammer was fanning the flames of student interest with a good old-fashioned pep rally.
“We can head over there together,” I said as we started in the direction of the exit. “Hey, I never pegged you for advanced placement.”
He gave me a healthy dose of the Jake smile. “Dad’s idea, not mine. To save money in college.”
I shrugged. “No crime in being smart.”
“That’s debatable,” he muttered in a low voice. Then, louder, “It’s a joke.”
“Is that where you’ve been all week?” I probed. “Studying?”
He stopped and regarded me intently. He was trying to figure out if I knew. “Didi”—it took a lot of effort for him to say her name, but once it was out, the rest followed easily—“has been coming over. A lot.”
I nodded. We pushed open the double doors and ran for the football field.
We were the last to get suited up. Yes, Coach Hammer made us attend this charade in full pads. I guess we were more inspiring pep-wise if the kids saw us with some extra bulk.
Actually, the old snot-and-mustard had a pretty good turnout that day. One of our grandstands faced due southwest, and it was a warm, late-September afternoon. To find a better sunning opportunity, you’d have to go to Barbados.
Surprisingly, our most vocal devotee was, of all people, Dipsy, who had declared himself kind of an unofficial cheerleader. Mascot might be a better word, because, at a Broncos event, he was as out of control as any wild animal. And for someone who hardly spoke at all except for quiet, nonsensical lectures on marine biology, the guy could shout down a stadium full of people.
“ALL THE WAY, TEAM! WE’RE GOING ALL THE WAY!”
It was pretty embarrassing for us players, especially at games, with visitors from other schools staring at him and us like we were from Pluto. But the Broncos, who raked Dipsy over the coals for everything else, never got mad at him for this. He was, after all, our number-one fan, and a crummy team needed all the supporters it could get. Personally, I could never quite figure out if Dipsy was being totally serious or just putting us on. He didn’t strike me as the “rah-rah” type. My theory was that it was his revenge for a whole lot of teasing and practical jokes. But I kept my opinion to myself.
What the Broncos didn’t have in talent they made up for in testosterone. The guys were putting on a great show, slapping butts, bumping chests, and bonking helmets. The smart ones kept their distance from Nelson, the self-appointed distributor of concussions. He put a shoulder into one of the running backs that knocked the kid flying, setting in motion a domino effect that took six or seven players to the turf.
Our fans went nuts.
“Hey! Hey!” barked the coach. “Save it for Liberty, you maniacs!” He was grinning. In football, the prevailing wisdom went that homicidal violence was a good thing, as long as it could be directed at the other team.
Jake and I, the latecomers, jogged into the fray. Since the coach was in a good mood, there was a lot of goofing around going on. Most of the guys’ girlfriends were with them—except for the cheerleaders, who were bumping and grinding through their routines in a style better suited to rap videos that had been banned from MTV.
I blinked. There was Didi, hanging all over Todd, playing the perfect quarterback’s trophy girl. She’d come from St. Mary’s to support her man—as if she hadn’t spent the better part of a week practically shacked up with Jake Garrett!
My mind went into high gear. Maybe I had the wrong idea about Didi and Jake. Maybe they were only getting together to plan a surprise party for Todd. (The millennium celebration didn’t take that much preparation.) But one look at Jake’s face told me all I needed to know: he thought Didi was his. Didi, apparently, thought otherwise.
For a moment I suspected that this pep rally was going to get memorable. I put a hand on Jake’s shoulder. “Not here,” I whispered. “And definitely not now.”
His misery was so tangible that you could almost grab pieces of it out of the air around his head and shoulders.
“She’s going to dump him, you know,” he said earnestly. “This is just so he looks good in front of the team.”
I nodded noncommittally. Let me tell you, Todd looked awesome in front of the team. An ape would look good with Didi crawling over him.
“Listen, Jake,” I said, trying to pick my words carefully. “Does it really have to be Didi? I know how hot she is, and that you two used to know each other. But there’s something going on in that girl’s head that neither of us understands.”
“She doesn’t even like him anymore,” Jake went on, as if his words could erase what was happening. “She knows he cheats on her.”
If Didi didn’t like Todd anymore, she had a hell of a way of showing it. A smart kid like Jake should have been able to see that. Our long-snapper had a serious blind spot where Didi was concerned. In fairness, he wasn’t the first guy with that problem, and he wouldn’t be the last.
“You know, there are lots of girls who are dying to date you,” I told him. “Your parties have made you the guy to know at school this year. The word is, Corinne Gardner’s been talking you up. Remember her? The sweet sixteen? The ice swan?”
His eyes never left Didi in Todd’s arms. “I didn’t do all this for Corinne Gardner,” he said absently.
“What are you talking about?”
He looked nervous. “It’s just an expression, baby.”
At that moment, the pep rally built to a noisy crescendo in which a few of the Broncos kicked the stuffing out of a huge plush wildcat, representing the mascot of the Liberty Lions. Nelson delivered the coup de grace with a golf club that took the head clean off and put it in the fifth row of bleachers. There it was reduced to molecules by Dipsy.
Coach Hammer must have been thrilled with all this, because he let the visitors hang out for a while before clearing the field for an abbreviated practice.
It seemed very casual the way Jake worked his way over to Didi. But I could see how smoothly he meandered from group to group, inviting people to “a little get-together” he was planning for the next night. He said it as if this had just occurred to him, and his Friday bashes weren’t as regular as the tides.
“Jake!” cried Didi, delighted to run into an old friend. “Long time, no see!”
Remind me never to go to her eye doctor.
“Hey, Jake,” Todd said warmly. “Party tomorrow night, right?”
I held my breath, waiting for Jake to take a swing at him, or at the very least, curse him out. Instead, Todd received a brilliant flash of the Jake smile.
“Same time, same station, baby.”